JK Rowling irked over David Cameron's response to Leveson report

Harry Potter author JK Rowling felt "duped and angry" at the prime minister's rejection of a central recommendation of the Leveson inquiry, the statutory underpinning of a new independent press regulator.

In an article for the Guardian, the Harry Potter author said she had "thought long and hard" about the possible consequences to her family of giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry and "finally decided to do so because I have made every possible attempt to protect my children's privacy under the present system, and failed".

But she argued that without statutory underpinning, any new self-regulation would not work.

"If the prime minister did not wish to change the regulatory system even to the moderate, balanced and proportionate extent proposed by Lord Leveson, I am at a loss to understand why so much public money has been spent and why so many people have been asked to relive extremely painful episodes on the stand in front of millions.

"Having taken David Cameron's assurances in good faith at the outset of the inquiry he set up, I am merely one among many who feel duped and angry in its wake."

The victims of press intrusion have refused to meet the culture secretary, Maria Miller, in anger over Cameron's reaction to the report. Miller asked to meet some victims last week, but she instead met leading figures in the Hacked Off campaign, Evan Harris and Brian Cathcart.

The two pressed her to explain why the Conservatives were rejecting Leveson's proposals on statutory underpinning on principle.

Rowling, who was one of dozens of people who gave evidence about press intrusion last year during a media ethics inquiry, said that she was "alarmed and dismayed" by Prime Minister David Cameron's lukewarm response to Lord Justice Brian Leveson's report, published Thursday to conclude the probe.

Leveson's 2,000-page report concluded that Britain's press sometimes "wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people," and recommended the print media be regulated by a new body enshrined in law. Cameron said he welcomed the proposal, but was reluctant to set down new laws to back a press regulator because such a move could threaten freedom of the press.

Rowling wrote on the website of the Hacked Off group, which campaigns for victims of press intrusion, that she feared nothing will change to hold the press to account.

"Having taken David Cameron's assurances in good faith at the outset of the inquiry he set up, I am merely one among many who feel duped and angry in its wake," she wrote.

The 47-year-old writer had told of how journalists had driven her out of her home and targeted her 5-year-old daughter at school during the inquiry, triggered by a scandal over tabloid phone hacking that expanded to engulf senior figures in politics, the police and Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Hacked Off on Friday launched an online petition urging Cameron and other politicians to implement Leveson's recommendations in full.

The recommendations have pitched Cameron against Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, his coalition partner, who argued that a new law on press regulation should be introduced without delay. Cross-party talks were being held in an attempt to reach an agreement.